Dad’s tortilla soup
I love soup. Soup is probably one of my favorite meals. I can eat it in every type of weather and in every season but one type of soup stands out above the rest, my dad’s tortilla soup.
The soup itself is rich, spicy but not too spicy, and full of flavor. You pour yourself a steaming bowl of the red liquid and bring it to the counter next to the stove. Then comes the toppings, freshly fried tortilla strips, queso fresco, chiles, peppers, and the complementing avocado slices.
But it's not even necessarily the soup itself and the flavors associated with it that makes its one of my favorite meals but the memories associated with it.
In high school, I could stare out the window and it would be a gray, gloomy, rainy day and all I would want to do is go home and crawl under the covers. It’s at these times that I swear my dad could read my mind. My phone would light up and a text message from my dad pops up. My sister, Isabelle and I would make eye contact across the room. My dad is asking when we will be home for dinner, he would be making tortilla soup.
As soon as the long day was over, we would hop in the Jeep and make our way home. You open the front door and besides two dogs jumping up on you to greet you, you were met with the heavenly smell of the soup being made. Mexican music would be blasting, my mom would be complaining about the mess my dad was making and the fact that he didn’t need to pick up that many ingredients because as she says we already had that in the cabinet and didn’t need anymore and my sister would be taste testing every five minutes until the soup was ready to be served.
“It's not even the soup itself I love,” Lisa Briseno, my mother, said. “It makes me think of you two (me and my sister) and your dad. The mess it makes, the laughing in my kitchen, the memories and having everyone together.”
It was like that almost every rainy day that my dad had off. Sometimes the rain didn’t even have to come down, but it just felt like a rainy day with gloom outside.
When I got to college, I knew my rainy day tortilla soup days where going to be limited to the time I was home during winter break and it was heartbreaking. However, during the break, those days and the soup and the time I get to spend with my family meant the world to me.
Freshman year, when my parents still sent me care packages, my mom and dad sent me a Valentine/February present. They overnighted me my favorite foods. My dad’s tortilla soup was frozen in a thermos and overnighted it with my mom’s chocolate cake.
It was like I had a part of home with me 700 miles away.
